


I Do Not Sleep

by Schmuzz



Series: A Few Missing Links [2]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Venom is dead but Eddie's sappiness saves the day basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schmuzz/pseuds/Schmuzz
Summary: If this was one of those archetypal, three act stories, this would have been the part where he realized all his strength was inside of him after all; he didn't need a magical cure, a piece of technology, an alien symbiote - he was good on his own. Lesson learned, happily ever after soon to follow.But Eddie didn't feel like he was better on his own. He really, objectively wasn't. Now he was just weak, and lonely, and Venom was just - gone.





	I Do Not Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Another missing scene! I was interested in how Venom survived after the explosion. I was torn between this version and a funnier one, I might write the other one as well, but in my opinion this one is the better, heart-wrenching, soon will lead to romantic feelings scenario, haha. 
> 
> Title is from Mary Elizabeth Frye’s poem ‘Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep’.

Eddie treaded water. He had been covered in sweat and blood, now all washed away by the dodgy bay water, he was bruised and more than a little singed, but was ultimately fine. No broken bones or extreme pain, all because of _him_.

Above him was the aftermath of the rocket’s explosion, the noise of groaning metal and the sight firey debris that hit the water. He watched, frantic, even as the jet fuel and smoke stung his eyes so badly he could barely see. Because Venom might have made it. Just maybe. Right? Wasn’t there some astronomical chance that he would come splashing into the water and find him and bond with him again?

“Venom?” He yelled out. “Venom!” He didn’t know if an unbonded symbiote could hear him, sense him, whatever. Could he even swim without a host? What if he just sank to the bottom of the bay?

A steel support beam connected to the launch pad collapsed a few feet away, sending a wave of oil-slick water over his head and leaving him gasping for air. With a flurried look around him, he reluctantly swam towards a little area of raised rock where a few floodlights were set up. He rolled up onto the cold, mossy bank, and shivered in his clothes, chilled to the bone.

There wasn’t anyone here to warm him up, this time.

 

-

 

Looking back at the six plus months of his life, it was easy to make the comparison to the typical three act archetype of a hero’s story. And that wasn’t him being an egotistical asshole, either. The set up was easy, basic English Lit 101 he had gone over a million times in college. Act one; an arrogant man on top of the world is felled by his own hubris. Act two; he’s confronted with a mountain of complications as he tries to crawl his way back to redemption, and depending on the genre, he was stuck searching for or being helped by some magical macguffin. The road is lined with pitfalls, and in the final hour, it all goes to shit. Act three; finally, through the power of friendship or love or inner strength or _something_ , he defeats whatever the big bad was, and the status quo is returned – except the hero is different, and changed for the better, usually because he realizes that whatever he needed to reach his end goal wasn’t from some magical tool, or in this case, a strange alien, but it was inside of him, all along. The end.

Except Eddie didn’t feel like he was stronger than before, that he was better on his own. He definitely, factually wasn’t. Sure, maybe not freaking out passerbys on the street as he literally argued with himself over when and where he could eat humans was a good thing; not having to watch his back in case some other mad scientist type wanted to rip him open and study him was also a plus.

But all the conveniences in the world wasn’t worth it, not when _he_ wasn’t there.

Most of the debris from Kane’s rocket that had hit the bay had already been cleaned up, but Eddie liked to take his bike out that way. It cleared his head, weaving through the traffic. Even though he was always tempted to take risks where he shouldn’t on the off chance something might catch him before he got hurt. Sometimes he really had to concentrate to stop himself, the inward hope that there was an iota of Venom still in him that would be triggered awake if his host was in danger. Make him reappear once more.

He spent a few hours walking along the banks of the strait, looking at the murky waters that lapped up old bottles and plastic bags. Sometimes he’d take a few oil slick rocks and toss them into the water, trying to find the flattest ones to make them skip. He had never been good at that as a kid and he wasn’t now, but it was something for his hands to focus on as his eyes watched the top of the water, back and forth, until it got dark and he had to go home and actually work at the Kassidy assignment he had been given. The man’s crimes should have been enough to keep even the most seasoned FBI agent up at night, and while Eddie never got a full night’s sleep, it wasn’t from the crime scene photos and police reports.

Venom had said he was living in his head, though in reality he had been living… everywhere. Bonded to his cells, his muscles, his fat, his skin, deep in the marrow of his bones, wrapped around every organ.

And once he vanished, it was like the spaces he had nudged and pushed to get access were stuck that way. A billion tiny holes waiting to get filled up again. If Venom were here, he’d probably mock him, call him a pussy. But then again, Eddie wasn’t the one who decided to betray his entire species and sacrifice himself for a puny little human’s sake. So who was really the sentimental one here?

His phone rang, startling him from his empty stare out into the water. He dropped the smooth rock he had been holding and tugged his cell out of his pocket. Eddie had been getting a lot more calls these days, usually for prospective interviewers who wanted the story of how investigative journalist Eddie Brock had been targeted by Carlton Drake when he threatened to expose his unethical science methods, and the harrowing tale of how he brought him down. Eddie didn’t take those. He read the reports of what had happened, and his boss had credited him as a photographer on the Life Foundation expose that had been written when he had given him the evidence, but that was it. Even though he was sure there were at least a few videos on the internet of him acting crazy and even turning into Venom himself, no one had accused him of being a host for a strange alien lifeform. Whatever had happened between Venom getting out and Drake’s rocket crashing was shrouded in mystery, and as far as anyone was concerned, Eddie just happened to be in the right place at the right time to get some pictures. A journalist following his hunch.

Luckily, this call wasn’t that – it was from Anne. He pushed down at the anxiety in his stomach and answered it. “Hey, Annie,” he said.

“Hi Eddie – just, uh, checking in on you. Dan got the results of the MRI back.” That had been a few days ago. One last ditch effort to see if Venom was still lurking within him.

“Oh, okay.” Guess it was too much to hope that Anne was just making a social call.

“Yeah, well, the good news is that your heart and the rest of your organs are in optimal condition again. But it – _he’s_ not there, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

He sniffed, and kicked a few loose rocks into the water. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, huh?”

“Listen, this has been a lot for everyone – especially you. Why don’t you come to my place this weekend, we can do the doughnuts and coffee thing like we used to.”

“From Lou’s?”

“Yeah, from Lou’s. Just like old – yeah. I’ll be home, just swing by whenever.”

“Um, yeah, alright. Sounds good. Thanks, Annie – a-and tell Dan, thanks, too, for uh, checking, and everything.”

“I’ll let him know. Bye, Eddie.” She hung up. Eddie looked at the little picture of her contact icon; long blonde hair, red dress, holding a glass of white wine at some rooftop bar somewhere. He should really change that picture to something unrelated. A flower, a bird, something that wasn’t her.

He shoved his phone back in his pocket and crouched, picking up a few more stones. His foot had revealed something white and shiny in the mud, and he idly picked it out, eyes widening when he realized it was a tooth.

Not a human tooth, though. This was long and extremely pointed, like a needle, though the very tip had worn away, probably from hitting the shore. Eddie leaned towards the brackish water and very carefully washed the rest of the grime off.

It was his. There was no mistaking it for anything else. Not a shark’s, not even Riot’s. It was _his._ He rubbed his thumb over the tiny grooves on the otherwise smooth surface. It glinted in the sunlight like buried treasure.

“Don’t worry,” he muttered, shakily getting to his feet. “Don’t worry, I got us.” He carefully put the tooth in his front jean’s pocket. On his way home, he must’ve touched that part of the denim two dozen times, searching for that familiar shape and point as he drove.

He stopped at a Michael’s and got some cord. He spent a good ten minutes making sure he had knotted the cord around Venom’s tooth securely enough that it wouldn’t slip out. There was enough of a root that veered out that a knot would stay, but he was paranoid, anyway. This was the one thing of Venom he had left; it wasn’t going to fall through his fingers like everything else.

He looked at himself in the mirror, once he had it on. It hung a few inches from his throat, the point a prickling sensation against his chest, but the tooth was too dull to do any more damage. Eddie tucked it under his shirt, away from anyone else.

Maybe he shouldn’t keep it, he thought, cleaning up the leftovers from his impromptu arts and crafts session, and the rest of his apartment after that. He had never been the neatest guy, but at the realization he hadn’t dusted his apartment, ever, that he didn’t even have anything to dust _with_ , he winced. There was always something to be said about forcing yourself to dress the part, keep a clean workspace. It helped, or something. And he was too wired to sit down and read or watch TV, so he kept it up, opening the windows, washing the dishes, wiping down flat surfaces and the tops of the doorways with a wet rag, restless energy prodding and pushing him.

It wasn’t until he had shoved his monstrously sized pile of dirty laundry into three different washers in the laundromat a block away that he wondered if the necklace was unlike Annie’s picture. If the memory of Venom wasn’t just going to keep picking at him, its dull point wearing at his skin until he was cut open. He had always been one of those people who needed someone else; in and out of relationship after relationship since college. He had thought Annie was the only person he wanted to be with, and maybe, in another world, where he hadn’t snooped on her computer, hadn’t dug his heels in at that interview, she would have been.

Then, another part of him pointed out, they’d probably only get a few months of married bliss before the other symbiotes appeared and turned to humans as a replenishing host and food source. Having Venom inside Annie had been weird enough to think about, and that was for the altruistic purpose of saving him. Seeing one of those things take her over only to eat her from the inside, reducing everyone on Earth to shambling husks, it – well.

It was difficult to regret the last six months of his life. Not because it wasn’t hard, wasn’t excruciating in the way he had been stretched so thin, emotionally, mentally, and physically, but Earth was safe. And everyone he knew and loved was safe, too. Any other path he took would have meant everything being taken away in a much more permanent sense. He still had this city, and he could still… talk to Annie, and he had an actual job again. There had even been some talks about him putting on another news series, though he wasn’t quite ready to be in the public eye again.

He slowly tugged the pendant out from underneath his shirt, running his thumb over it. Being with Venom had been terrifying; marred with constant threats on their lives, and more near death experiences than he wanted to count. But the power they shared between them, the fact that their relationship, their ability to coexist so well together, was the greatest source of their strength, it had been… special. Eddie’s personality wasn’t too abrasive or needy or damaging when it came to he and Venom working together, saving the world together.

Was that just a poetic way to talk about a codependent relationship? Maybe. He tapped the tooth against his bottom lip, sighed, and stared forward. He didn’t think much of anything else until the clothes stopped spinning.

He stuffed his clean clothes into some tote bags and hauled them back into the apartment, put away half of them before he realized he was now, decidedly, starving. He tossed a few folded up towels on the small shelf in the bathroom before tugging his boots back on and heading to Mrs. Chen’s little corner store. Since he had gotten his job back with The Daily Globe, he finally had some money in the bank again. It wasn’t anything grandiose, but he didn’t feel bad about loading up on some of the essentials: frozen pizza, case of beer, tater tots, a few chocolate bars, and a single, shiny red apple when Mrs. Chen eyed his purchases with a judgmental expression.

“I’ve had a rough week,” he said by explanation, getting his wallet out.

“You’ve had a rough six months, Eddie,” she said matter-of-factly. He paused counting out the bills.

“Yeah. Guess so.” He handed her the total. “It might uh, be looking up.”

“Really?” Mrs. Chen had that usual doubting look in her eye. It wasn’t necessarily aimed at Eddie, more at the world itself. Life is pain, right?

“Got decent work to report in on, again,” he added sheepishly as she bagged everything up for him.

“I see. Just make sure you don’t slack off. Deadlines are important, even if you’re a writer.”

“I’m a reporter – different jobs.” Mrs. Chen let out a breath of air, glancing up at the ceiling briefly. “It’s true! They cover it in English 101, you know.”

“Unfamiliar terrain,” she said. “Goodnight, Eddie.”

“Night, Mrs. Chen.”

The streets around here were never quiet; unlike the nicer parts of San Francisco, where people and stores operated on a 9 to 5 schedule, things here were always churning; lights were on, people were out. Eddie wouldn’t say he enjoyed the extremely… _lived in_ condition of his apartment, the less than pleasant smells on the street, the overly loud neighbors (though that had calmed down somewhat, thanks to Venom scaring the worst offender. Eddie didn’t feel bad about it), but it was _real_ , in the sense that you got a better idea of how people lived here than the places where they were all shut up in their houses by dinner time. The part of Eddie that liked to observe, examine, people watch – he could appreciate living around here. Kind of.

He eased the apartment door open. His landlord had fixed it after the Life Foundation break in, but Eddie still felt like a strong breeze would break the wood off its hinges again. Everything looked… nicer than he expected it to. Cleaner. Hell, even the laundry on his bed was clean. He finished putting the rest of it away while his pizza heated up in the oven, and sat down to watch the evening news as he ate.

This wasn’t exciting, he knew it. He wasn’t jumping out of windows and going on a motorcycle chase or anything, but he had done stuff today, this week. Things were improving, a minute climb upwards. Maybe he just had to learn to appreciate the little things in life. A cold beer, clean sheets, finishing work on time, not worrying about paying bills (as much).

It sounded naïve, even to his own mind. He worked through more beer and some chocolate, flicking through the channels until his eyes grew heavy. He just managed to brush his teeth and peel off his clothes before passing out in his bed, listening to the traffic and voices outside as he nodded off.

The necklace was still pressed against him when he drifted to sleep.

 

-

 

It wasn’t there when he woke up. As soon as he rolled over and stretched, there was an awareness of the bracelets on his wrist, but not around his neck. He opened his eyes, slapping a hand to his chest. The cord was there, the solid knot, too, but not the tooth.

“Fuck,” He hopped out of bed, tugging down the covers. He lifted his pillow and looked under the bed, growing more frantic as he searched. “No, no, no, where _is_ it?” He had the necklace for one day – less than twenty four fucking hours, and he lost it. He was impatiently tugging the sheets from his bed, shaking them and waiting to hear the sound of something solid falling out and hitting the wood floor, but – nothing. It was gone. The one thing he had to remember Venom by was gone. 

Maybe it had fallen off before he went to bed, then – it was on the fucking street somewhere, had gotten kicked out into the road or down into a sewer, and he’d never, ever get it back. He scrubbed both hands along his face, into his hair. The back of his throat clenched up, and he sucked in a breath of air, wiping at his eyes. It wasn’t fair. Venom had _died_ for him, after only knowing him for a couple of days. He gave up everything for him, his planet, and he couldn’t even – he failed at making a _fucking necklace._

“I should’ve just put him in a fucking glass case or something,” he muttered to himself, as he gingerly moved to sit back on the unmade bed.

**_‘It would have been a lot more difficult for me to bond with you from there,’_ **

Eddie jumped to his feet. “No,” he whispered. “No way.”

**_‘Still think I’m a brain tumor?’_ **

“No, you’re – a manifestation of my grief, or something.” Eddie turned slowly, inspecting his apartment, though he already knew he wouldn’t see anything or anyone there.

**_‘Why would you be suffering from grief?’_ **

Eddie let out an abortive attempt at a laugh. “Are you kidding? My life’s still a fucking mess. Just because I got my job back and washed some dishes doesn’t change the fact that I’m still a loser, or you’re… gone.”

**_‘Who said I was gone?’_ **

“Don’t see you here, do I?” Eddie whispered, heart thumping wildly in his chest. He heard a sigh, even though it didn’t come from his own mouth. Something shifted inside his chest, curling tighter and expanding, then stilling.

After a minute of silence, Eddie slumped back onto his bed. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. He was still alone.

A small, black tendril emerged from his sternum. It was the size of a garden snake, if that. Its head had a pair of pearly eyes staring up at him, and a tiny grin made out of razor sharp teeth. **_“Seeing is believing,”_** Venom said, his diminutive size not impacting the strength of his voice. **_“Thanks for picking me up.”_**

“V…” Eddie reached out a hand, fingertips brushing against the thin tentacle. Venom was quick to wrap between his fingers, entwining with his hand. “Oh my God,” He felt the tears from before returning, making it hard to see the symbiote in front of him. “I thought you – I didn’t think – how could you have survived that?” 

 ** _“Didn’t come out intact… but we can survive without a host, for a while. Dormant, waiting. I felt you again, and woke up, went back inside to repair myself.”_** Eddie brought his hand closer to his face, holding Venom under his chin, trying to shield him with his own body. He didn’t want to think what would have happened if he hadn’t kept searching for a sign of the other, if he hadn’t found that small piece of him and kept it. The idea of a comatose symbiote, slowly wasting away, all alone, after he had done so much for him – **_“Now is no time for tears,”_** Venom interrupted. **_“You found me. Kept me safe. We are together again.”_** He felt Venom disentangle himself from his fingers and slither up his face. A small, wet tongue laved the tears that had started to roll down his cheek. He laughed, wiping at his other eye and smiling at Venom.

“Together, right,” Eddie said, voice shaky, fuck, even his _knees_ were shaking, even though he wasn’t standing any more. “I’ll – help you get stronger.” He knew all the gory details that statement entailed, but he couldn’t help the excitement flooding through him.

 ** _“Stronger together,”_** Venom reminded him.

“Right, you’re right. Stronger together. Come on, let’s go get dressed, we can have breakfast out.”

**_“What sort of breakfast?”  
_ **

“Something not living, since I'm not sure you could eat anything bigger than a spider, and it's broad daylight... But other than that, whatever you want.” Venom hummed in consideration before slipping back into him, and Eddie felt that familiar pang of hunger that signaled Venom’s presence.

He broke off the remains of the cord and dumped it in the trash as he made his way to the bathroom to get ready.

After all, who needed a memento when you had the real thing?


End file.
